How do I rearrange the Home screen icons?

The Home screen is the first thing you see after you slide your finger to unlock your device. You will see quite a few default icons including Contacts, iTunes, App Store, Settings, Photos and more. When you download third-party apps, the icons are placed on the Home screen. The Home screen can only hold a limited number of icons (16 + 4 on the dock for the iPhone/iPod touch; 20 + 6 on the dock for the iPad). After you reach that limit, app icons will overflow into additional Home screen pages.

Unfortunately, Home screens fill up fast, especially if you install a lot of apps on your device. You can end up with a number of Home screens which can make it hard to find the app you’re looking for. You may want to rearrange the icons to make them easier to find. Here’s how you do it.

To rearrange Home screen icons:

Tap and hold down any icon on any Home screen and release it when it starts to wiggle.

Drag any icon to the place you want. You can move them around the current page or move them to another page by dragging them to the left or right edge of the screen.

Press the Home button to save the new icon position.

(You can also organize app icons in Folders. For more on this, see page 21.)

Drag Icons in and out of the Dock

The Dock is the menu bar that appears at the bottom of every Home screen. The Dock on the iPhone and iPod touch can hold four app icons; the Dock on the iPad can hold six. You’ll want to place your most frequently used apps in the Dock.

By default, the Dock is full. First, hold down on one of the Dock’s icons until it starts jiggling and drag it out of the Dock to make room for another. Then drag the desired app icon into the Dock. Repeat the process until you have the desired apps in the Dock.

Place links to Web pages on the Home screen

You can also place links to Web pages on the Home screen. Simply open the desired Web page in Safari, tap on the “Send” icon at the top of the page (small box with an arrow in it), and select the “Add to Home Screen” option from the pop-up menu. Once the new icon is on the Home screen, you can move it around like the app icons.